Death to the Patriarchy?

This is an older article from Kevin DeYoung on how the term "complementarity" better describes the Bible's teaching on the differences between men and women. The term "patriarchy" has never really been used in church history to describe the male/female relationship and is used as a pejorative now and the concept as defined by the culture is indeed harmful and not in line with scripture.

But, we need to be careful to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. DeYoung urges to stop and consider what happens when Christians throw out biblical concepts of fatherhood and good male leadership.

As DeYoung concludes, "Deep down, men are aware of these limitations of manhood, which is why they feel the urge to protect women and children and why in every society . . . “men look to women for gentleness, kindness, and love, for refuge from a world of pain and force, for safety from their own excesses”. When a woman sacrifices all this to meet men on male terms, it is to everyone’s detriment, especially her own. Men and women are not the same, and if we want to acknowledge that in the home and in the church, we need to acknowledge it in all of life and in all of history. The biblical vision of complementarity cannot be true without something like patriarchy also being true.